


War-torn and desperate; there's a reason to keep on fighting

by Vuetyris



Series: Operative Warren [6]
Category: Warframe
Genre: Body Horror, Canon relevance, Corpses, DIY splint, Desperation, Emotional Damage, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Exhaustion, Facility infiltration, Father Figure, Freelance mercenary, Gen, Matter into energy, Mutilation, Paternal Reunion, Rescue Mission, Second Dream - Freeform, Self-Mutilation, Self-Sacrifice, Somatic Link - Freeform, Somatic Shock, Transferance - Freeform, Transferance Project - Freeform, Wound regeneration, autocannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-26
Updated: 2018-09-26
Packaged: 2019-07-17 18:22:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16101209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vuetyris/pseuds/Vuetyris
Summary: The war is over, the Orokin Empire sits in ruins as the system is reclaimed by warring factions. A heave and ho, a push and pull; each mission a bid for scrap credits hours after hours; mercenaries picking whatever work they can manage. T’viska’s body aches as he returns to his ship, lingering until a sensation seizes his mind – and the moon returns.....“Dad’s here, Warren,” T’viska swallows, his lungs restricted from his exertion – he needs to heal his wounds. With the strength he still has, he tugs Warren against him as he shuffles, pushing himself back. “I’ve got you…”





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> -+- Kudos and comments are encouraged! -+-

“Suuir,” a voice chokes as he yanks himself forth, cringing as his fractured leg buckles against the inner half of the ramp. He inhales a harsh gasp of air through his dark frilling vents in his chest, gulping air as he pulls his numbed leg up the final steps, guiding himself against the inner arch of the doorway into safety, where the chill of Venus doesn’t sting his open wounds, nor chill the shrapnel embedded through skin and casual wear. “Alert the contractor; mark has been executed,” he swallows, falling back against the wall of the modified liset. Above him no cephalon speaks; but the energy hums beneath an alteration of commands, easing the craft through the storm as gently as it can manage.

Within its hull – as it whispers into a void mask, the loki sighs, pulling his golden claws around a guild beside the encased opening, to pull himself up.

He hisses as his leg buckles beneath him, his other hand clawing around the tight snare that caught around his thigh. A bare yank gives him to groan, eye-spots flickering open and churning into a scowl – he needs a cutter. Its on the other side of the arsenal. T’viska holds tight on the guide as the liset booms through the atmosphere at last, drifting into the depths of space and hums past the observing corpus ships.

With a growl the loki yanks himself upright, his crushed and snared leg lingering limp as he leans against the wall. “Suuir,” he grunts, “I need a pain killer.” And begins to stumble his way through to the small dispenser strapped into the foundry unit. Crates lie stacked beside it with bandages, with gauze as he looks around for where he last left the wire cutter – well aware of the tight pain in his thigh. “What’s the ration storage looking like,” he heaves as he paws behind him in the dispenser recess, fingers clicking against the glass of a small bottle of alcohol.

T’viska cracks the glass with his snarling teeth as the screen beside him rattles off the suspect reserves still left – materials he can use to restore his energy, accelerate his innate healing factor as his stomach resigns empty of energy. He chews the glass into a harmless congealing mass of matter that’s safe for him to swallow; and sighs, his other hand picking out the shrapnel pushed out of his skin. However, his leg sits exhausted as he heaves himself half onto the foundry console.

The alcohol stings against his throat, his barbed maw tendrils ensnaring around the bottle to hold it against his chin as he tugs off his holster harness. It drapes around the foundry’s arm, a battered lato marred lies resigned in its holster as he tugs his shirt off over his arching horns.

Black and wine purple scars decorate across his back and chest – only a brief few scatter against his shoulders as he sighs, throwing the bloodstained shirt into a bin. Absentminded, he munches on the remains of the small glass of alcohol – it’s held in place by four barbed tendrils that feed it into his mouth as his hands clean themselves of his and his target’s blood. A mere manager for a corpus delegate, but the territory was rough, no one else was willing to take it for the risks.

Or maybe for the meager sum payment it’d bring.

Wiping his hands clean, the loki checks his chassis for any newly formed scars, picking out any stubborn pieces of metal scrap that he discards into the same bin as his now useless shirt. A huff moves through his chest as he shuffles, steeling back a cringe as he daunts his movements – and propels himself across the room in search for the wire cutter. He can’t fix his leg with the wire ensured around his thigh, barbs biting into his skin.

Golden fingers dance through the variously sized tools above the modification station, searching for the wide wire cutters as he holds himself stable with one hand and dancing up onto his toes of one foot. There’s a growl that rumbles from him, slamming a drawer close to rattle, searching through another with an agitated grumble. “Destination reached,” a chipper voice speaks – it’s not the cephalons, but a basic system installed prior. Cephalon Suuir flickers onto the screen at T’viska’s side, watching as the loki searches still.

“What is it, Suuir?” T’viska sighs, leaning against the mod station with a grunt – the cutter wasn’t there.

It flickers through the remote observers that makes the cephalon’s sight – displaying the tool’s location further down, behind the arsenal console at the far end.

The warframe sighs; in defeat and relief. “Thanks,” he grunts.

Before he fetches it, however, he moves himself back to the foundry station, collecting a package of gauze and a makeshift metal splint; within his leg he can feel the bones of his right knee are still broken. The booze and glass weren’t enough to reverse that damage just yet.

T’viska settles behind the arsenal station with a groan, his head falling back with a sigh and a grimace. A kavat, whom had only watched him limp around, gather against his side as he picks out the cutter from behind the arsenal console. “How’d this get back here,” he grumbles.

Beneath him the engines faint a surge – Cephalon Suuir’s response.

If he had eyes, T’viska would’ve rolled them as he works the jaws of the cutter beneath the wire and against his skin, wedging it even as it presses against his wounded and bleeding skin. Exposed nerve endings bleed as he cracks it into position, where it soaks in his dark blood. As he wrenches it in place, pressing his head back against the wall, he hisses – the green-eyed Kavat licks his chin, rough tongue lapping away dried blood.

He’s gentle as he shoves the kavat away, scratching their chin as he keeps his focus on his thigh – and exhales in anguish as he yanks the cutter’s jaws closed. Not a clean cut, it’s still in place. Unamused, he carves it back and forth in a sawing motion between the biting jaws, chewing through the metal snare wrapped around his leg. He’s glad it only got his leg…

Once the fifth circuit is cut, T’viska yanks the metal away from his leg, tossing it in the direction of the foundry – one thing done, another to go; he sighs. His golden laws dance around his bleeding thigh as he picks the fabric of his legging out of the wound, yanking the material down to his knee and well up towards his hip and crotch. His golden claws dance around his bleeding thigh with strips of gauze, tucking it tight around itself as his dark purple-toned blood oozes into the fibers. Just enough to cover the wound, he reminds himself, it’ll heal eventually. Just like the broken bones in his leg further down in need of a splint.

He’ll give himself a minute to cover that up…

T’viska pulls the leaf-like-tailed kavat on top of him, scratching it’s purring jaws as it licks his face, nipping against his chin. “Easy,” he sighs, briefly chuckling, “Cren, have you been good?” he asks with a slight smile. Of course, he only gets more nips in return, slim paws wandering over him, stepping onto his back leg. T’viska hisses, pushing the large creature off as pain bites through his nerves. “Careful,” he grunts, pulling himself up and shielding his injury from the kavat – but their attention seems to have been sated.

Crenshaw, the green-eyed kavat, drapes themselves around the other blue-tone-tailed kavat in the corner. T’viska watches as the slightly smaller Rhubarb nips Crenshaw’s hock, long paws wrapping around the others leg before they get into a small tussle – their ears arching back, tails whipping back and forth. “Settle,” T’viska barks. Crenshaw flops down while Rhubarb stares, barely growing, “Rhubarb,” T’viska growls, “don’t make me come over there,” a light threat – he’s not able to get up just yet.

He heaves himself to sit off to his left side, giving his busted leg room to breathe as he drops the gauze down between his legs. T’viska’s decorative skirt sticks against his blood-soaked leggings as he tears through the leggings on his right leg – freeing his two-toned shin completely as he pulls it off to slop. Another pair ruined, he sighs.

His fingers dance against his skin as he accesses the internal trauma, poking and prodding with golden claws to find the extent before he places on the makeshift splint. More than just his knee, the damage lingers down into his shin as he wipes away blood drippings from the new covered snare wound. A sigh breathes through his chest vents as he steels himself for the pain, tightening the gauze around above his knee before moving it down, entombing his knee in the material before placing the metal utilized as a splint. He wraps it over and over; pulling it snug until his leg can barely move.

It should encourage it to heal quicker once he stops moving.

Pulling himself up, the loki hobbles himself with small hops, depositing the scrap material into the bin for utilizing later. He’s not feeling particularly fond of reusing the material for energy – even though his stomach and energy reserve ache for matter. His shirt is worn down and tattered, his dark leggings ruined by blood and torn of thigh… both he wears to cover the dark scars across his body that echo his faint energy as he stretches. Sleep should do him good… pushing himself towards the rear of the idle orbiter.

Electricity sparks through his thoughts, drawing him to cry out as his claws fight to find something to hold onto, digging around hanging cords as heat bleeds through his spine. His transference bolt in the back of his neck aches as he fumbles to the floor, a hand grasping between his horns, the other squeezing at the back of his neck. T’viska’s voice draws hoarse as he wears out his panicking lungs, systems eccentric as he fights to find his breath through the somatic surge.

He lies crumpled on the floor with a pain in his side, where he collided with the dispenser and prodding it into his gut, faltering as his wrapped leg smacks against the floor awkward and hard. It aches as he fights back the nervous panic, barely feeling the prickle of his own golden claws digging against his skin. The warframe hisses as he struggles to pull himself upright, mind still resounding fogged and unfocused – his visual receptors muddied by the electrical storm channeled through his spine. “S-Suuir,” he slurs, gasping as pain surges from his busted leg. “What happened,” he chokes, a hand holding against his chest as he lies back – exhaustion hammering through his chest.

Radio frequencies play out above T’viska as he lies reclined in an open bay area – thankful that he hasn’t settled anything there yet but there’s still an ache in his side. He might as well rest here for all his issues.

The radio chatter is muddied as it swiftly moves from channel to channel, either grineer, corpus, or unaffiliated. Some are monotonous, the movement of material between armed checkpoints along courier routes, the storming of materials, the undercurrent broadcasts from elusive frequencies used by grineer or corpus personnel. But, the cephalon hones onto a frequency considered close – a broadcast around the zone of earth.

“The moon!” a voice exclaims in garbles, “Lua! It’s… it’s back!” shouts a grineer at the outer reach of the liset’s region; a broadcast that soon circulates to the exclusive channels, along with the banter to mobilize on it – a territory for the major factions to contest over in full. A thousand radio frequencies announce the same thing as Cephalon Suuir searches through them – and shortly the entire system will try to converge upon the unclaimed moon.

In the meantime, as the ecstatic announcements bicker above him, T’viska stays reclined, mind searching for a ghost that’s been haunting him, a presence he’s been long hunting through the lingering somatic connection reaffirmed. “Warren…?” he whispers. Hopeful, not optimistic. The warframe’s injuries prevent him from venturing out yet, his leg still hammering out its ache. “Warren, can you hear me…?” he questions as his hand rubs against his crown – reasoning the teen is probably still sleeping, within a dream T’viska’s been living.

Over a hundred so years… T’viska sighs. He’s lost track.

“Suuir,” T’viska exhales, “can you move orbit to Lua…? Just close enough to observe; I’ll depart once my leg is better.” Beneath him, feeling through his inhaling lungs, the loki can feel the engines bloom into life, coaxing its motions as it changes it course from drifting out of the range of Venus towards Earth – a few million kilometers from their current position.

“Warren,” he breathes as he forces himself into a sit, choking as he grasps his blood-damped bandages. “I’m coming for you, kid,” whispers as he fists against a tethered crate, yielding himself up to his feet, claws digging as he forces himself stable.

Inside his thoughts, he can feel the somatic link connected… and carry out in silence.

“I hope you’re still alive…” T’viska sighs.

 

 

As Corpus and Grineer bombard one another on the outskirts of the fractured moon’s influence, Suuir’s liset whispers beneath their void mask. Sensors crawl through the jutting surface and the broken rifts, the busting of Orokin architecture lying pristine aside from the coating of voided dust. The surface’s formality and spires skew in their displacement, hard fragments revealing the buried structures held beneath. Laboratories, prisons, research chambers; a cataclysm of Orokin facilities once buried beneath Lunar dust now exposed.

T’viska flips through the materializing map as it reaches around him at the navigation panel, its surface extending as Suuir orbits beneath the arching Orokin towers embedded in the surface. The cephalon tracks and maps the landscape into intimate details – the crumbling of golden surfaces leaving bare the calcified innards, the winding of its exposed arboriform nervous system that carries from tower to tower, the cracks barreling down into the darkest depths, further than the sun’s illumination can reach.

The loki can feel the somatic link flickering as the liset cruises at altitude; his golden fingers flicker over the displayed surface as his mind searches for the elusive signal coaxed from the teen’s somatic cradle… hoping its resurgence means Warren’s alive and won’t lead him to a corpse. Pain sparks across his spine a he browses over the cracks in the mapped lunar surface, hoping there’s something that can be read as a hint through their connection… or it’s only his anxious hope that’ll make it into something.

Through the hologram, the cephalon’s tetrahedron sails through, text following the muted cephalon. ‘What are you looking for?’ the text reads, ‘you’re anxious, what’s the issue.’

“Warren,” T’viska mumbles, “a kid I met during the old war. We lost track just after the war was done… he’s got to be around here somewhere.”

The cephalon’s symbol bobbles over the landscape, deviating the loki’s control as it soars beneath an Orokin archway between fractured towers. ‘The one that’s been haunting you?’ crawls along the display as the computerized brain scours through the ground-penetrated readings – ones that are still incomplete as the liset hums into a standby orbit.

“Yeah,” the loki sighs, bringing himself to sit with one leg beneath him, his right raised as he massages the knee. “Told him I’d protect him as much as I could…” he watches the landscape flicker around him as the cephalon works, “and then he’s gone. I could do nothing – poor kid’s been through so much.” He scowls.

‘So I’ve heard,’ flickers across the display, sensors still prodding and drifting, and eventually draws itself back as the ship shutters into a hush. ‘Wouldn’t the systems in the back be best utilized for this?’ dances across.

T’viska draws his claws over his crown, golden digits dancing along his jutting horn with a sigh. He stares down at his leg, still stinging with mending pains. “I suppose,” he shifts, pulling the splinted limb out to the side, his small paws gripping against the ground. “If I can get back there,” he briefly chuckles, his good leg crouched beneath him as he reclines against a raised surface – sat delicately on the ledge. “Do you know how it works?”

‘No,’ flickers across the bannering of the lunar landscape.

The warframe sighs, pulling himself to his feet as the lunar refraction dances over his bare skin; the only material worn being the gauze and splint around his right leg. “It’s worth a shot,” he finches, limping himself over to the ramp, “dispense one of those slurries, I’ll grab it on the way there,” he sighs.

The capsule of material is bitter against T’viska’s throat, his formed mouth twisting into a disgusted snarl. But energy is energy, absorbing the questionable material into his systems as it surges new found energy into his nerves and blood. Golden claws coat against his thigh and knee as the once radiating pain is soothed, unwrapping the material carefully to reveal the healed mark of the snare, his restructured knee as his hands make a simple check.

Pressing his weight down upon it, only then is he certain it’s healed completely.

In the rear room, where a somatic cradle sits empty, the loki leans against the transference pads, feeling the prodding of mental receptors inside his thoughts. It stings against his sensation of a tongue, sparking through his arms and makes his throat warm as the cephalon quests to make the somatic connection into the somatic link. T'viska’s features twist as his thoughts surge in their connection; reliving the figments of a battered body, surging through his own gut as scratching digs against his cheek in a resurging memory, the rough handling, the tossing, the bigger remarks and resentment of hushed voices.

The glowing slits of his face clench as his mouth snarls, electric sparks surging through his neurotic cortex as he strains to hold himself stable. Sensations crawl through his nerves, crawling and catching in his brain to fight and dig, connecting the somatic cradle he leans against to the far distant signal of the other end within the loki’s mind. Drawn forward, straining to fight for breath – it cancels out, leaving him gasping with a wheeze.

Lungs heavy, the loki leans against the empty cradle, glancing around to the liset’s flickering lights. “Did that work for you, Suuir?” T’viska grunts, rubbing his crown as the current courses through his nerves. Pulsations hammer inside his head as he’s drawn to hiss – a coiling wrapped around his heart. He looks away from the quiet cradle, nearly stumbling as he moves towards a display installed closer to the door.

Paws nearly stumble over the haphazard wires as he leans against the wall, golden claw tapping against the holographic screen. After a moment, when he rests his weight over it, Cephalon Suuir flickers a ‘yes’ across the screen. It cascades to flux the lunar map, following with a tracing trail through like a tracking beacon – it’s the signal on the other end of the somatic link.

Relieved, T’viska smiles.

Once he can find his balance, he carries himself across the liset once more, pulling on a worn set of leggings to cover up his scarred legs and a shirt to cover the ones scratched across his body. At the navigation display, he traces out the faint route Suuir had curated – a path that crawls through the broken Orokin structures beneath the surface. The navigation is fuzzy as there’s only so far the tech can read beneath the surface – obscured by Orokin tech.

As he chokes down another serving of the questionable slurry, T’viska can feel the material restore his dwindling energy reserves, energizing his exhausted systems as he checks his damaged lato. It’s only in case there’s any scavengers already on the moon’s surface, he’ll be ready for them.


	2. Chapter 2

The only thing waiting for him as he lands is lunar dust. Wisps of the off-white material tossed up by the liset’s humming engines and tossed into the grand expanse beneath the platform where the loki lands. His feet pad gently against the swirls of lunar dust as the liset’s engines are drawn to whisper, standing in full as he takes in the landscape of the open rift; the starking gold amongst ghosting white. The outcrop where he stands lingers above the embodying darkness of broken pillar stones, peering over the edge before drawing himself back. Around him rings silence and the hum of the ship’s engines, spinning a signal towards the cephalon to return to orbit. “I’ll signal when I’m ready for extraction,” he calls to Suuir as the liset whispers into a void mask.

Once more, T’viska is alone.

And he exhales through his muted vents, letting the mild heat of his insides steam out before they affirm a seal. A relief of stress; he has no reason to breathe the stench of the void nor the stale emptiness of space. Perhaps the atmosphere conditions haven’t kicked in yet… he queries.

Suuir’s beacon directs him towards a small opening near the face of the crumbling Orokin structure at the end of the outcrop. Orokin symbols whisper old doctrine as he brushes his hand over a small plague; and up ahead he eyes the scrambled symbols lingering as a sign, a designation in code he figures as he looks farther up the path. A circular door sits bowed and bent out of shape beneath crumbles of lunar stone, crushed beneath a phantom compression as its corresponding tower sits contorted far above the lunar pillars. What could’ve caused such damage, he questions.

Irrelevant, he reminds himself, nothing of his concern as he wanders beneath the crumbling Orokin structure. T’viska eyes the scratches in the fractured door, the blast marks of worn sentient energy as he moves himself to where a waypoint dictates his attention. His mouth flinches as he stares through the opening marked for him by Suuir – cramped, held jagged by metal and stone fragments. He looks to the door again, and back to the small tunnel cultivated by the collapsed structure.

It’s too small, especially given his arching horns.

He wrestles off his shoulder holsters as he tries to think – how he’s going to wiggle through the space.

Carefully, his golden claws pry at the crumbles of rock and Orokin gold, wrestling it free from the collapse chunk by chunk. Piece by piece, he pulls lunar stone from the tunnel, wrenching his shoulder as his forearms fight the stones to shear and break. It’ll make more jagged pieces, he reminds himself, and will probably scratch his back.

But this is for Warren – the kid that clung to him in the darkest of times.

The loki hisses as a stone shard digs into his forearm, and another breaks off as his muscle jerks.

He needs him, T’viska whispers to himself as he draws his forearm against his stomach, staining his shirt with his blood. Warren never gave up on him; he won’t give up on the kid we he needs him the most.

Carefully, the warframe eases himself down into the tunnel backwards; legs first, he slowly pushes himself through, pulling his holster after him as shards dig against his rear and back. They scratch through his shoulders as he wiggles himself backwards, his head held firmly arched and against the ground. Warmth drips across his back as he crawls into the entrance hall of the facility, his mouth turning into a snarl as he feels over the fragments clinging in his shirt. A waste, he mumbles, pulling it up and over, throwing it down to the floor.

His energy reserves take care of the stone scratches on his back, healing the damage in full as he stretches out a sigh. Internally he flickers through the path he was set out to take to where the other end of the somatic link ended, where Warren hopefully sat within a somatic cradle and lingering in a dream. He doesn’t want to imagine it in any other measure; an image he shakes from his head as he represses himself to conserve his energy; his feet padding against the idle and stained floor.

At the secondary entrance door slated with the moniker of ‘security access’, T’viska’s claws flicker across a command panel connected at one side – held within a security box, he presumes it was a guard post. When the surging hologram flickers into read, he tries to provoke a connection through to Suuir’s liset. “Seems to need a security code,” he sighs, lifting himself away, leaning against the podium as the cephalon works to crack the code.

“If this doesn’t work, need to find a-“ the panel beeps red, Orokin reading across it ‘trying’, and the loki sighs. “I’ll try to find another way around just in case, keep working on it.”

After the console beeps its denial for the hundredth time, Cephalon Suuir disconnects.

Once more, T’viska finds himself alone as he thrusts a scrap piece of Orokin metal into a deep crack in the wall. It’s much larger than what he’s started with, scraping out lunar dust once reinforced by Orokin tech. At least, he hopes its still not reinforced anymore from the passage of time, throwing his strength against the widening crack before glancing back at the security door.

He does take a moment to consider trying to break through it – but the material looks heavy and reinforced. And probably for good reason – hiding away the Orokin’s immoral experiments behind security checkpoints. So, he scratches the heavy metal against lunar stone as his energy begins to dwindle; this sort of path will have to do.

Over and over, the loki digs metal against stone, expending his draining energy through each exertion. His vents heave heat directly from his lungs as he slams the makeshift pick against the crumple of stone. Energy once spent in reserve expels as he takes his lingering strength to bore out a larger hole in the wall, carving out a small tunnel as his breathing turns to gulps – he’s not sure how long he’s spent focused on the single task.

The metal drops with a thud as he leans against the wall, digging his arm through the opening, scaling the size with physical measurements as his claws dig against the far end.

Barely large enough for him to squeeze through.

With a snarl, T’viska grabs a clump of the dusted material as he falls back against the wall, visual receptors closed as his stomach surges empty, hungry for energy while his body sighs. At his side his lungs heave, gasping for breath as he finally lets himself find rest. Against his chest, his curled hand rests, his other dropping the metal scrap as his head falls against the wall.

Energy… he sighs.

He needs energy.

T’viska takes a moment to stare at the shirt he discarded; useless for energy, easily catches on his teeth. In his hand, as he stares down, lunar stone.

With a sigh, the loki takes a small chunk of the material, biting down into it with his harsh molars. Given the size of it as it dissolves into pure matter, choking it down… it’s not enough for him to continue, tossing away the clump with a grunt. He’ll have to take other measures to restore his energy banks, as he lies exhausted against the wall.

Arms outstretched, palms held up and his forearms exposed… cannibalizing himself comes to mind, stripping his own flesh in return of energy. He’s only done it once before; in an age farther back then he wants to remember; the agony of tearing himself apart with his own teeth, strips of flesh hanging free as blood seeps freely.

T’viska looks around the stale surroundings. The Orokin sterile walls, the gilded gold dusted by lunar dust, the stain of split blood and sentient blast marks.

His brow twists, and he bites down.

Warm black seeps down his throat, illing against his razor-sharp teeth as he works a chunk free from his arm, briefly tearing dark muscle from blue surging veins. Satisfaction briefly stings his throat as he swallows his torn muscle, trembling as the pain surges and forces it against his chest. “For Warren,” he whispers a reminder to himself, pulling his arm free once more before biting again, tearing free a muscular chunk from sticking fibers and the dark skin of his forearm.

Pain stings his arm as he holds it close, mouth twisted into a snarl as his golden claws dig into his side. Down within his gut he can feel his energy banks restore, fueled by his self-sacrifice as he draws himself to stand again, his arm held tight against his chest as blood drips down his scarred stomach. Its sting causes him pause, raising the metal piece back against his side as he stares at the crude hole he bore into lunar stone.

The warframe shuffles, and brings his trembling arm against his mouth again, hissing through his teeth as he tears another slice of flesh from his body. It drips against his chin as he forces the hand to not land at his side, but to tremble its grasp on the metal. Black-purple blood oozes as he swallows his torn muscle, choking it down whole as he switches his focus on the hole in front of him – still too small to wiggle through.

He needs to work harder, and longer.

T’viska hisses as the metal shuffles in his grasp, slickened by his blood-laden palm.

He’s quick to brush it against his draping skirt, reckless as he slams the metal into the stone, picking it to gape larger. The drive to succeed flows through his nerves even as his hand crumbles into trembles, forcing the metal piece against his side as he uses his entire body to drive the hole larger. And through it, his breathing is drawn to gasp through the exertion, leaning against the wall as his good hand scratches out through the opening to break stubborn shards free. He’s almost able to reach through the other side as his head bows through it.

Almost there.

He tears another piece of his inner arm off with a cringe, his barbed tendrils drawing it in as he bows back to the hole – bleeding into stone. The dust stings inside his open wound, mouth turning to snarl as he pulls himself through the tunnel he’s made so far.

“Almost through,” he winces, golden claws scratching against the bow of lunar stone cresting the hole. He shoves it with all his strength… and it doesn’t give. Back and forth, he wedges it, features twisting as he shoves himself against the stone, his made-wounded arm digging and bleeding into the stone beneath. “Come on,” he mumbles, lips turned into a snarl, “come on.”

Eventually, when a fissure has formed into stone, it begins to give, shattering off into a clump letting loose more dusting. Beneath his ribs the loki coughs, nearly choking before he presses himself up from the blood covered stone. The surging causes him to wheeze, his energy storage aching empty as he lies in the hole he’s dug into the Orokin structure. More energy…. More, he wheezes as he pulls his arm up against his blood-stained teeth.

And stops.

What would Warren think…? His mind queries.

Sharp teeth bite into muscle as his features squeeze, trembling as he yanks another slab of his flesh from his forearm. His hand resounds numb as he swallows the sparse of muscle, barely stable as he moves to yank himself forward, churning himself around to lie on his back as his good hand grips against a metal fragment in the wall. His breathing is sharp as he pulls himself back, easing himself slowly as his butt and thighs make it through the torn opening – the shards catching his leggings and scratching his legs into welts.

Back on his feet, his trembling hand tucked against his side, T’viska looks over the bowed room scattered with innumerable corpses made into husks. What can only be described as cadavers lie in stained pools as his pained vision swarms, breathing blood through his vents as he stumbles into the open lobby. Consoles sit unoccupied on one side, painted into blue static while chairs like skewed. Whomever was there was in a hurry to get out, he mumbles as he looks over the traces of bullet holes scattered against the wall, following them down to where a body lies curled, suited merely in generic Orokin robes.

The receptionist, he identifies; his sight falls onto the other bodies. Officers; someone who can only be regarded as a ‘consultant’ as they lie in a pool of blood, face torn into a ghastly hue.

His features scowl, walking back to the reception as his thoughts still linger in a blur; the waypoint given to him by Suuir as an only given of location and distance – not a pathway. He needs a map… something to lead him in the right direction as his claws mess with the wired connection of tech he still lies uncertain about. It’s a guestimate on how they work, backhanding the machinery as he snarls. “Come on you piece of shit,” he grumbles, “work.”

And only blue static greets him.

T’viska huffs as he looks around the lobby, breathing the stench of stale blood and coughs up his own black purple fluid. There lies doubt in his mind that the Orokin would allow a layout of their facility to hang in a display – their clout of mystery hangs in oppression, only those they’d allow would be allowed inside or to travel under armed guards… And he steps over another corpse as he wanders to a sealed door, held by a badge panel. For a moment, his mind goes blank; his stomach seizing.

Claws clutching against his crown, his memory flickers and fades, recalling briefly the ‘consultant’, and he turns to their corpse. His stomach aches again for energy, and so does his arm against his ribs as he shuffles his way over to the stench of rot. Too far gone to be fresh – off by a hundred or so years as their skin holds grey and leathery.

Lowering myself down to their side, he holds his bleeding forearm tight as his good hand claws the sticking sludge of the mummified corpse’s slacking innards. Its stale and bitter stench sting in his throat as golden claws ensnare the leathery skin, yanking it to the side as the corpse lies in shriveled rigidity. A waft of the scattered innards makes him gag, his wheezing vents sticking shut as he searches their coat for an item – the elbow of his torn forearm propping it in place.

Elbow deep into sickly gore, his claws snare around a lanyard dangling within their once elaborate coat, the identification badge feels small in his palm as he pulls it – and the body – towards him. It rolls beneath his pull, their shriveled guts barely slopping as the sticking material clings as he holds the card in view. A once white badge lies stacked by the stain of blood, flaking out beneath his rubbing thumb as he pulls it close – still attached to the corpse.

A minor inconvenience he sighs, unclasping it from the body as it slumps back to the floor.

Shaking the sticking gore from his hand, he’s thankful the facility went with a low-tech method of security. Easy lockouts and weighed down with simple lock and key mechanisms as he runs the now browned card against the wall to reveal its algorithm code. A simple brush of it against the reader, and the door will open, he sighs, holding it against the simple tech.

…

“Fuck,” he curses, squinting at the Orokin device embedded into the wall.

Looking between them lies traces of gore – and he sighs.

Once he’s wiped his arm and elbow down with the garb of a guard’s corpse, he tries once more; the light beneath the smooth surface pings, letting the heavy door slide open. T’viska’s relief doesn’t last as he moves through the remarkably empty corridors dotted with security clearance doors and cryptic signage. Some lie in halved ruin, crumpled by the weight of the bent tower on the surface, others littered with the corpses of guards and small bodies that huddle together.

‘Children,’ his mind cries, holding his arm against his stomach. Old blood smears the ground where solidified corpses lie crippled, some decorated with bullet wounds long drained of blood. If he follows the… he makes himself pause, shaking his head as he lies back against a wall. Following the corpses of children to find Warren… it’s a chilling thought as he holds himself close, inhaling deep gulps through the vents at his chest and throat.

‘Easy,’ he whispers to himself. His thoughts contort beneath his memory recollection – of pains dealt to Warren outside of their somatic transference. The pain of barbs biting into a sore cheek, collapsing down against the ground to a sting in elbow and rib. T’viska’s good hand holds against his face, biting into his palm as the pain just flows through him. Phantom aches bleed through him as he waits for it to finish its surging as with the other times. His hand moves against his jaw, his uninjured thumb joint pressing tight between his teeth as be bites.

They’re physical whispers of the pain the teen sustained without his supervision, when there was nothing he could do or say aside from waiting for him to spring back into his mind. The pain within his thumb rings numb against the nervous recollection of a torn jaw, of hours of isolation where the loki could only wait… and listen as the teen’s voice sat so happily inside his mind.

T’viska tears himself away from his bleeding thumb, revitalized enough by his blood.

The energy is just enough to keep going.

In his mind he can feel Warren’s signal still fresh, pinging him to keep moving as he wedges himself between a crushed door and its similar busted foundation. Another obstacle he must work pass as he explores the dimming facility, illuminated only by the ambient glow of the arboriform vegetation and the sporadic growth of the Orokin-influenced flora.

Beneath the crumbling surface of the walls and ceilings, as T’viska explores every nook and cranny in the fractured surfaces, the arboriforms hum in their resignation. They draw T’viska in their seclusion, their faint reminiscence of the structures behind the somatic link on the liset – and he wonders.

Might they lead him to Warren?

It’s worth a chance as he rests his bitten hand against it, letting his thoughts saturate and coil around the thought of the somatic signal – and yelps as a collage assaults his mind. Hundreds of unnamed signals bombard his thoughts as he leans against the wall; and he shakes his head.

There’s too many to sift through.

Too many kids left trapped in their somatic links.

As he holds his crown, shaking the haunting of scrambling voices, he can only sigh, leaning against the wall to slide as his sight eyes the general direction to which Cephalon Suuir had noted to be the other end of his somatic connection. Where Warren is, where he can find his adopted son and finally hold him… and tell him he’ll be alright. He’ll find him, he bites his lip, and forces himself to his feet; he just needs to search more… uncertain on how long it’ll take.

He’s not leaving without his son.

The warframe weaves through the harrowing structures burdened by the ill stench of stale blood, golden claws tracing against the wall as he pads over the muted bodies of guards long mummified by the passage of time. Every so often, out of curiosity, he grasps a stray branch of the arboriform, searching for a muted voice he once knew so well.

Within the belly of the facility he stands between the stairway of two different floors, collapsing down as he strains to find rest. Knees bent, he lies his horns against his crossed arms – his one torn lies dried of blood, coagulation thankfully giving him much reprieve from the sticking that clings to his chest and across his stomach. Long ago had he forgotten the lato and harness – he could’ve used them for energy instead of his forearm, he sighs.

Staring down the stairway to the next floor, to one of an innumerable amount, he glances at his good forearm dusted by lunar debris. And, as he looks back to his other arm, he cringes – half of his arm is gone, muscle torn down into bone, barely able to keep a hold of his numbed fingers. Would he be able to hold Warren if he takes the rest of his arm and hand… would he be even able to grow to that extent? His features twist into a scowl, looking back to his otherwise healthy limb.

He can’t take the muscles from his leg.

And bites, growling as he strips the black muscle out among with a strip of his skin.

It stings… but he’ll live. He can heal later.

T’viska forces himself to his feet as he leans against the wall, holding both arms against his gut as he eases himself down. The energy granted from his self-cannibalism stirs in his gut as it corrodes into pure energy, swarming into his chest as he explores the empty halls, shoving his shoulder into empty rooms to bust down stubborn doors. Still clutching the personnel card, he uses it when he can – and his remaining strength goes to breaking in when he cannot.

He forces himself to rest once more before he interfaces with another arboriform strand, peeling another stand of muscle from his forearm, hushing his whimper as he swallows the bitter taste of his own flesh. It grants him energy, that is without a doubt. But he’ll eventually run out of will to keep going, left to linger in the ill halls of the facility with only Suuir knowing his approximate location. He shrugs off that doubt.

Raising himself back to his feet, T’viska lies his numbing hand against the arboriform of the floor’s sixth branch – the third he’s checked so far of this floor. The seventh floor last he had checked.

“Warren?” he whispers through as voices bombard his thoughts, trying to take over his consciousness with their anxious prying thoughts. “Can you hear me?” he exhales.

For a moment, there is nothing, like the other nineteen or however times he tried. Floor after floor, branch after branch… he just wants to know he’s okay.

And beneath the garbles of frantic voices trapped within their somatic cradle comes a mild whisper, ‘dad?’ T’viska’s mouth twists, a broken smile trickled with fresh blood.

“I’m coming for you, Warren,” he sighs, “hold on, kid.”

And he falls back, almost catching himself as he stumbles.

Golden claws hold at his crown as he fights off the draw of other frightened teens, battling for the control of his nerves as his hands shutter and tremble. “Leave me alone!” he shouts, scratching at the figments of the startled thoughts. “I came here for Warren, not you!” he hisses, his voice reverbing in the dark emptiness. The loki stumbles on his feet as he lashes out, his feet scratching at the ground as the transference ghosts disperse; his mouth is turned into a snarl, teeth barred and barbed tendrils lashing as he looks around in the darkness.

For a moment, his mouth brushes against his wounded arm, almost biting into the stench of flourishing blood, tainting against his barbed tendrils as they wrap and… he forces himself to pause, pulling his arm away as the snaring tendrils go lax. With a huff, he falters back against the wall. His claws lie against his face as he sinks down the wall – sinking his breathing dense and slow.

His consciousness is starting to slip; saturating near delirious.

He needs to find Warren.

T’viska bites his snarling lip, forcing himself up onto his stumbling legs.

The waypoint Suuir left him drifts as he sways; blood lost finally affecting him as his energy reserves dwindle – surging into emergency usage as his motions are drawn sluggish. His stomach aches for fresh sustenance that’s easy to swallow – but all he can see is the harshness of the Orokin walls, the staling stench of rotted corpses that he had had the great advantage of tripping over earlier.

Both of his forearm tremble as he bounces from one side to the other, his visual receptors flickering the waypoint to displace and shuffle as he presses the card against the reader panels one by one. Even with his uncertainties, he checks each of them, staring at the drenching silence and the moist atmosphere of the withdrawn somatic cradle.

Curved walls make him slump as he checks room to room, expending a minimal amount of energy as he waits to find the somatic cradle the waypoint stabilizes at – Warren would be in it, Warren would need help getting out; when he finds him, then he’d use his remaining strength. Even though his nerves resound in exhaustion, he keeps pushing, leaning against the door frame of another somatic prison room, another stinging of somatic driven arboriform air. Against the door frame, he lies his weight against it – his legs quivering with exhaustion.

The waypoint quivers as he stares at the silent somatic cradle, nested within a cold bath of coolant waters.

And eventually…

It flickers away, the loki pressing his head against the door frame.

And returns once more, reading a handful of meters before it vanishes from his sight.

T’viska, no matter how much he can try, stumbles against the wall of the open door, head lulling as he looks around for a way to withdraw the somatic cradle from its waters. His breathing hisses as he crawls himself against the wall, vents wheezing in the limited expanse his lungs are allowed. The platformed console is his target, stumbling his way up the short steps as he leans against it. His paws are useless as he slumps against the console, pressing the card against a screen with a similar marking to before. “Work, you fucking piece of shit,” he slurs, “give me my son.”

The first time it beeps, he’s hard pressed to punch it – but his strength isn’t with him as his knuckles dig, sliding the worn drips of blood against it. With the back of his hand he wipes away the blood and tries again. He’s relieved when it finally works, watching as the somatic cradle hisses out from the coolant waters.

“Warren!” he shouts, his lungs surging too weak to carry his voice as he abandons the badge for the moving somatic cradle, stumbling down the steps on his numb legs. He barely catches himself on the outer rim of the raised console as he falters, holding himself there for a moment – and tears another strip of his skin from his trembling forearm. “Warren!” he muffles as his barbed tendrils squeeze the souring flesh into his throat.

Diminishing returns; his stomach aches.

The energy won’t last long.

His claws scratch against the hull of the somatic cradle as it comes to rest, fingers trembling as blood-laden arms slide against the smooth surface. The faint monikor of consciousness, he feels slipping as the hatch hitches beneath his arms, pedals blooming as his arms move top to down, reaching into the saturating innards of the somatic machine and pulling the body inside close.

A young teen, auburn hair lingering over half of a masked face.

His bloodied hands slip as he tries to find hold of the teen’s body, pulling it close as his grip slightly slips, sliding deep into the somatic cradle

T’viska’s dark blood seeps against the damp uniform as he musters the last of his strength dwindling in his reserves. His trembling forearms hold tight as he pulls the smaller body up and over the lip – a hand holds around his neck as the body coughs, gagging on the somatic fluid that once flooded tired lungs. They both crumple down to the floor as T’viska holds Warren tightly against his chest, his arms stung by the fluid and the fabric of the teen’s uniform – but he’s got him. T’viska hugs Warren close against his chest, bowing the trembling teenager beneath his chin, hands gripping firm to check his consciousness – that he’s not imagining himself now as Warren coughs against his chest. “I’m here,” the warframe whispers, “I’m here, Warren.”

“Dad,” the tenno coughs, arms still held tight around T’viska’s body. Uncertainty clinging in his voice as he has to pry himself from the comfort in the loki’s arms. His thoughts lie groggy, head lulling in confusion as he looks over the room – the console still in the same place, the room layout the same; but the difference is in the smearing of dark blood he’s seen so many times on the field beneath the transference

Arms tug him close, a body forcing itself to recline as it shuffles to rest on the somatic cradle.

“Dad’s here, Warren,” T’viska swallows, his lungs restricted from his exertion – he needs to heal his wounds. With the strength he still has, he tugs Warren against him as he shuffles, pushing himself back. “I’ve got you…”

And Warren shoves him, his two-toned eyes surging bright and alert.

There’re no more guards.

His confused hands grip around the sides of his face as he kneels in front of T’viska, finding the clasps for the mask around his face. Hands scramble through his hair – tears welting in his eyes as he fights against the restraints holding his face captive. Anxious hands scratch and pull… their motions hushed as damp claws tremble comb through his hair. They click against the latches, fingers quivering as the loki whispers a ‘ssssh’ as he sits forth. “It’s okay,” T’viska’s voice slurs, dancing the elaborate strap through his fingers, “it’s okay now.” He cradles the teen’s head in his palms as his fingers trace against the once tight latch, gentle despite the rending they once made of bodies long ago.

Tears bead against Warren’s sight as he leans into the loki’s comforting hands, palms curling and bunching into his uniform given to him by his captors – the Orokin. Obediantly, his head sways beneath the loki’s gentle touch, drawing the strap out of their elaborate nesting, apologizing for each pull against the teen’s scalp. Warren says nothing… listening to the loki freely speak to him, comforting him as he undoes the mask that made him placid. Warren’s clenching jaw stings with the bite of metal on his cheeks, squeezing out his sight as he tries to look away from the loki.

Only in mirrors has he ever caught the warframe’s features, torn into an aggressive scowl, smeared with the blood of their targets. Yet, he sits there gently now; black blood dripping from his mouth and over his chin. “There we go,” the loki whispers as his palms draw back, the straps drooping free,

Relieve flows through Warren… and so does panic as it doesn’t fall off.

Warren draws himself back as his fists clench around the mask straps, yanking them fierce as he stumbles backwards. His eyes flicker frantic, looking for something that holds his reflection as he fights against the mask’s bitter seal – thankfully such a surface is not too far as he crawls to the loki’s side. The mask burns around his face as he pulls and wrestles it; whimpering as half of it is eventually yanked free.

But, the other half sticks firmly against his face as tears flood his sight. Along his face the mask leaves indentations around where it once sat – holes bleeding as the spikes lie exposed to the open air. Feverishly, as he scratches against the seal of the mask hanging open, his voice hiccups, unmuffled by the dense material that kept him from talking back. “Get it off,” he whimpers, tugging the material, “get it off!” He shouts, the barbs beneath the mask digging into his stretched flesh, gripping into whatever flesh still lies beneath.

At his right side, as the mask hangs loose, T’viska catches sight of the angry barbs layering the inside of the cheek; glancing to where beads of blood speckle Warren’s free cheek.

He grimaces, mouth turning to snarl.

Golden claws grip Warren’s uniform and barely tug his attention away from his anxious panic, yanking and pulling, tearing at his skin fused into the mask. It’s excruciating as tears sob over and meld with the blood beneath. His whimpering cast T’viska’s gut to coil as his lingering strength makes him useless to his son’s panic.

But he can’t stand to watch his son sobbing, unable to do anything to ease him outside of phantom reassurance.

He’s done too much to do nothing.

So T’viska pulls again; not to pull Warren close to him, but to get closer to Warren. Hands move from yanking at the mask to T’viska’s bloody and tattered forearms – and are drawn back as the teen looks at the warm blood soaking his bare fingers. And, through a tear riddled sight, looks back to the warframe, his adoptive father. The teen’s features twist in the realization; “dad, what happened to your arms,” he sobs.

“Sssh,” the loki whispers cupping Warren’s face as he looks over the half mask clinging to his son’s face. “I’m okay; honest.” A thumb brushes the teen’s tears away as T’viska rests back against the somatic cradle, looking over the fusion of skin and metal. “Now, lets get that mask off you,” he whispers, pressing a golden claw between Warren’s face and the mask. His grip tests against the fusion, where the metal lies beneath his damp skin as he brushes away lingering locks of hair.

Warren flinches when the slow claw scrapes his skin, scraping blood to bead.

T’viska’s face furrows, “what’d they even do that to you,” he whispers, pulling Warren in for a brief hug – it gives him the strength to keep going.

“To make me shut up,” Warren whimpers, pulling against the mask merged into his skin. “I was nothing but trouble…. That’s why they made me do those things.”

“Suicide missions?” T’viska questions with a whisper, holding Warren with whatever strength he had left. Warren nods, tears streaming down his face.

“I didn’t want to let any of them die,” he bawls.

“I know,” T’viska sighs, barely pulling Warren into a hug as the teen bows against his chest. “I know,” he whispers, patting the teen on the back.

Warren balls himself back from the loki’s comfort as he fights the mask again, yanking it from both straps. As he moves, the loki’s hand can only linger at his back as Warren fights the remnants of his imprisonment, gasping and hissing, growling and crying as he tears his skin, wrenching it back and forth as his grip rings imbued with void strength. “I don’t fucking want this!” he shouts, twisting the mask back from his skin, crafting his skin to start to sheer as his stomach courses into a knot – gasping and gagging as he leans off to the side.

T’viska’s weak hand can only ball against Warren’s uniform, watching his son in so much pain as he’s forced to wait for his body to heal. A knot forms inside his chest as he watches the teenager cough up whatever he had once retained in his stomach – his body long starved of nutrients – he throws up nothing as his breathing coughs, spitting as he wrenches the mask further from his face. Blood pours down his features as he fights against the mask’s hold, soaking down his throat and over his uniform as he pulls it free with his void enhanced strength.

It slides against the ground as Warren tosses it away, brushing tears free of his sight before turning back to his reflection.

The left side of his face lies jagged in muscle and flesh; his teeth lie exposed along side his gums and the bleeding remnants that once was his cheek. Warren’s lower jawbone lingers painted with blood as his features snarl, teeth gnashing as his brow cross, nose scrunching as the as yet unaware T’viska whispers to him. “It’s gone,” the loki barely breathes, his golden claws arching beneath Warren’s bloody jawline, pulling the teen to face him full on.

He pauses, for only a moment.

But it’s enough to make Warren break down.

His void imbued fist strikes the somatic cradle.

Over and over, he punches the object that held him captive for so long, breaking its callous dark shell as he shouts, as he screams that none of it was fair – he never deserved any of it. The trauma of the past and the uncertainty of his future come crashing down as he pours his soul into every punch, as he strikes the shell as T’viska can only watch weary and exhausted.

And with whatever strength he has left, he pulls Warren back as the teen strikes the somatic cradle – tears streaming down his face, blood pouring from his face and fists. From the cradle to the warframe’s flesh, his fists remained balled, wrapping around T’viska as he’s pulled into a hug. “It’s okay, Warren,” the loki sighs, breathing a deep exhale. “You’re safe now… they can’t hurt you anymore.” He pulls Warren against his chest, arms completely wrapping around the trembling and sobbing teen.

“Dad, I’m sorry,” the teen cries, burying his face into the warframe’s shoulder, “I’m sorry you had to come for me…”

T’viska grunts, curling a palm into Warren’s hair. “No,” he sighs, “don’t be. I came to get you Warren, and I’m not leaving without you.” He grunts, head lying back as he works his lungs to full capacity. “I just… need to rest a bit… and we can get out of here.”

“Dad…?” Warren sobs.

“What is it?” T’viska barely huffs.

“Is there anyone else…?”

“No,” the loki barely shakes his head, “I’m the only one…. Walking around at least.” He sighs, “there’s a… badge on the console, it’s how I got in. All I found was corpses… and other pods,” he exhales, exhaustion stinging his speech. “Get some rest… you deserve it kid.”

Claws ruffle Warren’s damp and matting hair, a smile creasing the loki’s mouth.

“I’m glad you’re alright,” he sighs as Warren hiccups.

T’viska pulls the teen against his chest again, his bloody arms wrapping in their tired hold as Warren curls against him. The tenno bites against his anxiety.

Leaning back, looking over where his head lied, there’s a smear of red over the cream of the warframe’s pelt, wet blood lying over dry traces of black and the scars decorating the loki’s front. He can remember some of them… the one that pinned them against the wall most of all. And he lies himself back into the warframe’s embrace, his sight turning to the other side as he looks to what remains of the room. A blood smear that moves from the automatically closing door to the console… the dripping of purple black that moves from the console to the somatic cradle… and looking up, as the loki’s grasp droops, he spots the splashes and smears of blood on the spread pedals above them.

Against his cheek, he can feel the loki breathing slowly… merely sleeping as he watches the faint blue trace of energy flicker through the dark muscles laid bare. Inside his mind, he questions.

‘Why did he do it to himself’ as he looks between the black gore and the slopping of dried skin sticking to the loki’s jaw and throat. It’s a thought he shakes free, sighing as he eases himself out of the warframe’s soft embrace.

Warren nests himself at T’viska’s side, pulling one exhausted arm into an embrace, burying his face against the warframe’s warm body as he shivers; his uniform still damp. Eventually it’ll dry out.

Until then, Warren curls himself at his father’s side, letting himself fall into a deep, deep sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Several hours pass until T’viska’s energy banks restore themselves; and when his arms are finally sealed to heal in full, he guides Warren back to his ship – where Warren can finally sleep comfortably.  
> He can’t remember the last time he slept on linens.
> 
> -+- Kudos and comments are encouraged! -+-


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